Tiernan
I yawn, the warm smell of fresh coffee drifting through my nostrils as I arch my back on the bed and stretch my body awake.
Damn. I slept like shit.
I reach over on the nightstand for my phone to see what time it is, but my hand doesn’t land on anything, just falls through the empty space.
What?
And that’s when I notice it. The roughness of the new sheets. The whine of the bed under my body. The pillow that’s not the feather one my neck is used to.
I blink my eyes awake, seeing the faint, morning light stream across the ceiling from where it spills in through the glass double doors in my room.
Not my room, actually.
I push up on my elbows, my head swimming and my eyelids barely able to stay open as I yawn again.
And it all hits me at once. What had happened. Where I am. How I ran away, because I was rash and I wasn’t thinking. The uncertainty that twisted my stomach a little, because nothing is familiar.
The way I don’t like this and how I’d forgotten I don’t like change.
The way he looked at me last night.
I train my ears, hearing the creak of tree branches bending with the breeze outside and how that breeze is getting caught in the chimney as it blows.
No distant chatter coming from my father’s office and the six flat screens he plays as he gets ready for his day. No entourage of stylists and assistants running up and down the stairs, getting my mother ready for hers, because she never leaves the house unless she’s in full hair and make-up.
No phones going off or landscapers with their mowers.
For a moment, I’m homesick. Unbidden images drift through my head. Them lying on cold, metal slabs right now. Being slid into cold lockers. My father’s skin blue, and my mother’s hair wet and make-up gone. Everything they were—everything the world would recognize—now gone.
I hold there, frozen and waiting for the burn in my eyes to come. The sting of tears. The pain in my throat.
Wanting the tears to come.
Wishing they would come.
But they don’t. And that worries me more than my parents’ death. There’s a name for people who lack remorse. People who can’t empathize. People who demonstrate strong anti-social attitudes.
I’m not a sociopath. I mean, I cried during the Battle of Winterfell on Game of Thrones. But I don’t cry—not once—when both of my parents die?
At least no one in this town will care about me or how I’m coping with their deaths. The only person back home who’d understand is Mirai.
And then I blink, realization hitting. “Mirai…”
Shit. I throw back the covers and climb out of bed, heading for the chest of drawers where my phone is charging. I grab it, turn it on, and see a list of missed notifications—mostly calls from my mother’s assistant.
Ignoring the voicemails, I dial Mirai, noticing it’s before six on the west coast as I hold the phone to my ear.
She answers almost immediately.
“Mirai,” I say before she says anything.
“Tiernan, thank goodness.”
She breathes hard, like she either ran to the phone or just woke up.
“Sorry, my ringer was off,” I explain.
“You’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Chills spread up my arms, so I flip open the top of my suitcase and pull out my black sweatshirt, juggling the phone as I try to slip it over my head.
“So…are you going to stay?” she asks after a pause. “You know you don’t have to. If the house isn’t comfortable or you feel weird—”
“I’m okay,” I tell her. “The house is nice, and he’s…” I trail off, searching for my next word. What is he? “Hospitable.”
“Hospitable,” she repeats, clearly suspicious.
I clear my throat. “So how is the world?” I ask, changing the subject. “Anything that needs me?”
“Just take care of yourself,” she says, and I don’t miss the way she cuts me off. “I won’t bug you again. Call me if you want—I want you to—but I’ll stick to texts to check in from time to time. I just want you to forget about everything here for a while, okay? I got it handled.”
I look around the bedroom I slept in, thankful I have it to myself, because at least I have one place here that’s mine where I can go to be alone.
But the thought of walking out of this room and confronting new people makes my stomach roll, and I…
Just book me a flight back home, Mirai. I want to tell her that.
But I don’t.
Jake seems to be amenable to letting me be and not pushing too hard, but Noah is friendly. Too friendly.
And I’ve yet to meet Kaleb, so that’s another new person coming.
I walk for the double doors, needing some air.
The least of my worries should be what people are thinking or saying about my absence back home—and what they’re thinking and saying about my parents—but I can’t help it. I feel like far away and out of the loop is suddenly the last place I should be right now. Especially when I’ve foolishly hung my hat in the middle of nowhere, with some guy my father hated, and on land that smells like horse shit and dead, rotting deer carcasses.
I pin the phone between my ear and shoulder as I throw open the doors. “I should be there for…”
But I trail off, the doors spreading wide and the view looming in front of me.
My mouth drops open. Suddenly, I’m an inch tall.
“You should do what you need to do,” Mirai replies.
But I barely register what she says. I stare ahead, absently stepping onto my large wooden deck as I take in the expanse before me that I didn’t notice in the dark the night before.
My heart thumps against my chest.
So that’s “the peak.” It didn’t cross my mind that the town was named so for a reason.
In the distance, in perfect view between the trees beyond my balcony, stands a mountain, its granite peak gray and foreboding, skirted with green pines and topped with white clouds that make the scene so beautiful I stop breathing for a moment.
Holy shit.
It’s just there. A cathedral, sitting in front of a blue sky, and before I can stop myself, I raise my hand, reaching out for it like I want to take it in my fist, but all I can feel is the morning air breeze through my fingers.
I inhale, the smell of the earth and stone drifting through my nose even from here, the memory of the dead animal smell from last night forgotten. The scent of water hangs in the air, fresh but musty where it soaks into the soil and rock, and I inhale again, closing my eyes.
The hairs on my arms rise.
I need to leave now. I don’t want to get used to that smell, because it’ll stop being special before long.
“If you want to be here for the funeral, then be here,” Mirai goes on as if I still care about anything we were discussing. “If you don’t, I don’t think anyone will question the only daughter of Hannes and Amelia de Haas if she’s too distraught by the sudden death of both parents to attend the funeral.”
I open my eyes, part of me wanting to smile and part of me disappointed in myself, because I know I won’t leave. Not today, anyway. I raise my eyes and look at the peak, not wanting to stop looking at that view yet.
I swallow, remembering Mirai. “Thanks,” I tell her. “I’ll take a few days and think about what I’ll do.”
The funeral wasn’t for four or five more days, at least. People from around the world would need time to get to California, as well as all the arrangements that had to be made. I had time.
“I love you, Tiernan,” she says.
I pause. She’s the only one who says that to me.
All the memories come flooding back, except now I catch things I didn’t catch before.
All the times she—not my mother or father—called me at school to see if I needed anything. All the presents under the tree I know she—not them—bought for me and the birthday cards she signed for them. All the R-rated movies she got me into that I couldn’t otherwise, and all the travel books she’d leave in my bag, because she knew they were my favorite things to read.
The first pair of dangling earrings I ever owned were a gift from her.
And I fucking nod through the phone, because that’s all I do.
“Breathe, okay?” she adds.
“Bye.”
I hang up, needles pricking my throat, and continue to stare at the beautiful view, my hair blowing in the soft breeze and the wild smell of the air so much like a drug. Heady.
A woodpecker hollows out a tree in the distance, and the wind sweeps through the aspens and pines, the forest floor growing darker the deeper the woods go until I can’t see anything anymore.
Do they hike? Jake, Noah, and Kaleb? Do they ever venture farther into the forest? Take time to explore?
A chainsaw cuts through the silence, loud and buzzing, and I blink, the spell broken. Turning around, I drop my phone on the bed and walk for one of my suitcases, digging out my toiletry bag. Walking for the door, I squeeze the handle, slowly twisting it.
It squeaks, and I flinch. My parents didn’t like noise in the morning.
Stepping softly into the dim hallway, the dark wood floors and paneling lit only by the glow of the two wall sconces and a rustic chandelier, I tiptoe past the room Jake told me was his last night and head for the next door, reaching for the handle.
But before I can grasp it, the door swings open, light spills into the hallway, and a young woman stands there, damn near naked. Her mussed auburn hair hugs her face and hangs just above her bare breasts.
Jesus… I turn my head away. What the hell? Is she my uncle’s wife? He didn’t mention being married, but he didn’t say he wasn’t, either.
I cast another quick glance at her, seeing her smile and fold her arms over her chest. “Excuse me,” she says.
Taut, flat stomach, smooth skin, no ring on her finger—she wasn’t his wife. And definitely not the boys’ mother. I have no idea how old Kaleb is, but Jake said Noah was his youngest, and she’s not old enough to have grown sons.
She looks only a few years older than me, actually. One of the boys’ girlfriends, maybe?
She stands there for a moment, and my shock starts to turn to ire. Like, move or something? I need to get in.
“The difference between pizza and your opinion is that I asked for pizza,” she recites.
I falter and turn my head to look at her, but she’s looking down at my sweatshirt. I drop my eyes, seeing the one I’d donned and the writing she was reading on the front of it.
She chuckles at the words and then slips past me, out of the bathroom. I rush inside, and I’m about to close the door, but then I think better of it and dip my head back into the hallway. Unfortunately, though, I just hear a door close. She’s gone before I can see which room she disappeared into.